ISU starts new Liberal Arts High program
Students at Century High School got a glimpse into what a college classroom is like on Tuesday.
Thanks to the new Liberal Arts High program at Idaho State University, professors can go to local high schools and teach lectures. Their goal is to hopefully get kids interested in going to college.
Food and how it can help understand history was the theme of Dr. Kathleen Cole De Peralta’s lecture.
De Peralta talked to the students about Roman history and did Q & A with the kids, much like she does with her college classes.
“This is something very different,” said De Peralta. “It’s trying to say, ‘here’s a real experience you can have if you went to college.'”
The students said they liked the different perspectives that a college professor can bring to subjects.
“I thought it was really interesting,” said Madison Tyson, a junior at Century High School. “It was a different approach to history and I liked that about it.”
“I liked it a lot,” said Zachary Kidd, another junior at Century. “I liked how she applied it, like kind of the diversity of a global approach.”
But history is only one option students and teachers can pick from. Other subjects included in the Liberal Arts High program are anthropology, English, philosophy, political science and psychology.
With a variety of subjects, organizers of the program are hoping it will show kids what options they have.
“A lot of students come to college and they have no idea what to major in and so this gives them a wide range of possibilities they might not have considered before,” said Diantha Smith, who helped set up the program.
Another benefit of the program is to show students that professors aren’t as scary or intimidating as students think they are when they first go to college.
“When I think back to when I was in high school I never really interacted with a professor until I got to college and I was deathly afraid of them,” said Shane Gleason, a political science professor. “I think we need to do anything we can do to kind of let students see that professors are people.”
Organizers said this first event went really well. They’re hoping they can go to other high schools around the region and to reach more students.
“If we can reach even one student and they can have suddenly this epiphany about ‘hey there’s more to life than I thought. There are dreams I can have that I didn’t think I could have,'” said Smith. “I think that would make the program worth it.”
Teachers or schools that are interested in having a professor come visit their classrooms can sign up online. There, they can select which topic, which professor and what time.
Organizers said they’re hoping to be able to spread this program to other schools around throughout the southeast region.
For more information on the program, or to schedule a visit, check out ISU’s College of Arts and Letters website:http://www2.isu.edu/cal/liberal-arts-high/.
